Stop Volumetric, Protocol & Application-Layer Attacks—Fast, Safe, Auditable
DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) Protection shields your sites, APIs, and apps from volumetric floods (L3/4), protocol abuse, and application-layer (L7) attacks—without breaking real users.
SolveForce designs DDoS defenses with Anycast, global scrubbing, BGP RTBH/Flowspec, edge WAF/Bot, and safe automation (SOAR) so mitigation is measured in seconds, not hours—and every action is audited.
Where this fits in the SolveForce model:
🌐 Edge/Delivery → CDN • 🔒 Boundary → WAF / Bot
🖧 Routing → BGP Management • 🔀 Transport → SD-WAN
📊 Evidence & Automation → SIEM / SOAR • 🧠 Decision Layer → SolveForce AI
🖧 Fabric → Networks & Data Centers • 🌐 Connectivity • ☁️ Cloud
🎯 Outcomes (What you get)
- Time-to-Mitigate (TTM) in seconds for common vectors; low residual loss.
- Layered defense: L3/4 scrubbing + L7 WAF/Bot + origin cloaking + Anycast withdraw.
- Business continuity with measurable SLOs, not hope.
- Evidence on demand: flow logs, mitigations, rule versions, approvals → SIEM.
- Safe automation: rollback/circuit-breaker if user SLOs dip → SOAR.
🔥 Threats We Mitigate
- L3/4 volumetric — UDP floods, reflection/amplification (DNS/NTP/SSDP/CLDAP/Memcached), TCP SYN/ACK/RST floods, GRE floods.
- Protocol abuse — malformed TCP, “slow-loris/slow-read”, connection exhaustion.
- Application-layer (L7) — HTTP(S) request floods, API method abuse, credential stuffing/carding (with Bot). → WAF / Bot
🧱 Controls (Spelled out)
Network-Layer (L3/4) Defense
- Anycast — distribute attack load across many POPs.
- Global scrubbing centers — divert (BGP) traffic to scrubbers, return clean traffic via GRE tunnels or private on-ramps.
- BGP RTBH — Remote-Triggered Black Hole for sacrificial prefixes during extreme events.
- BGP Flowspec — push targeted filters (match size/port/proto) at carriers and scrubbing edges.
- Rate limiting / SYN cookies — per-edge protection for handshake exhaustion.
- Detection feeds — NetFlow/IPFIX, packet captures, threshold/entropy detection.
Application-Layer (L7) Defense
- WAF — OWASP Top-10 rules, positive models for auth/checkout/admin; schema-aware API validation. → WAF
- Bot Management — device/session reputation, behavioral challenges (invisible first), quota/velocity controls. → Bot Management
- Origin cloaking — allowlist WAF/CDN egress; mTLS to origin; signed URLs/cookies. → Encryption • PKI
Routing & Fabric Controls
- Anycast withdraw — remove only sick POPs while others serve.
- SD-WAN sinkhole — steer malicious prefixes to scrubbing/sinkhole; pin golden paths. → SD-WAN
- Peering hygiene — route policies for amplification hotspots; diversity letters on carrier paths. → BGP Management
🏗️ Architecture (Edge-First, Scrub-Back, Reversible)
1) Edge absorbs & filters: Anycast + WAF/Bot + per-POP rate-limiters.
2) Scrubbing auto-diverts via BGP; clean traffic returns over GRE or Direct Connect/ExpressRoute/Interconnect. → Direct Connect
3) Origin is cloaked (allowlist + mTLS); scaling and cache/shield protect compute. → CDN
4) Automation: SOAR stages rules (canary→region→global), with rollback if SLOs dip. → SIEM / SOAR
Change as code: versioned policies, PR approvals, CI smoke tests, and red/green dashboards.
📐 SLO Guardrails (Experience & safety you can measure)
| Metric (p95) | Target (Recommended) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Detection → mitigation start | ≤ 30–60 s (known vectors) | Edge + scrubbing auto-signals |
| Residual packet loss (L3/4) | ≤ 0.1–0.5% | During active mitigation |
| Edge added latency (L7) | ≤ 5–15 ms | WAF/Bot + challenge overhead |
| False-positive rate (L7) | ≤ 1–2% after tuning | Protect UX |
| Availability (edge fabric) | ≥ 99.95–99.99% | Multi-POP Anycast |
| Evidence completeness | 100% | Mitigations + rule/version + flows |
SLO breaches trigger SOAR: rollback policy, relax challenge, or swap POPs automatically.
🔧 Tuning Loop (Keep signal high, noise low)
1) Canary filters (per-vector) on a % of traffic; watch latency/FPs.
2) Promote region → global once user SLOs are green.
3) Segment L7 policies by route (auth/checkout/API/admin).
4) Feedback: fraud/payments & NOC weekly RCAs; prune allowlists/denylists; refresh amplification intel.
🔗 Integrations (Lower MTTR, raise fidelity)
- SIEM/SOAR — orchestrate RTBH/Flowspec, WAF pushes, cache purges, Anycast withdraw; attach evidence packs. → SIEM / SOAR
- WAF/Bot — L7 protection, progressive challenges, virtual patches. → WAF
- NDR/EDR/XDR — correlate beacons/exfil with DDoS cover noise; isolate compromised hosts. → NDR • EDR / MDR / XDR
- Identity — step-up MFA on risk for auth endpoints; lock abused accounts. → IAM / SSO / MFA
- Routing — BGP policy, Flowspec, Anycast; SD-WAN sinkhole/pinning. → BGP Management • SD-WAN
🧭 Reference Patterns (By outcome)
A) API-First Platform
- Anycast + WAF schema validation; per-key quotas; mTLS for partners; L3/4 scrubbing backhaul.
B) eCommerce Flash Sale
- Pre-warm CDN; bot quotas for inventory; carding protections; progressive challenges; rapid rollback knobs.
C) Gaming/Real-Time
- Ultra-low latency POP mix; UDP amplification filtering; rate shape to preserve fair play; Anycast withdraw on sick POP.
D) Financial Trading
- Deterministic on-ramps; strict whitelists for FIX/market data; Flowspec + RTBH playbooks; audit-grade logs.
📜 Compliance Mapping (Examples)
- PCI DSS — boundary protections, carding mitigation, log retention.
- ISO 27001 — A.12/A.13 (ops & network security), A.16 (incident mgmt).
- NIST 800-53/171 — SC-5/SC-7 (denial-of-service & boundary), IR controls.
- CMMC — boundary defense & incident evidence.
All artifacts stream to SIEM (WORM options available).
🛠️ Implementation Blueprint (No-surprise rollout)
- Surface inventory — DNS, IP prefixes, apps/APIs, regions, critical routes.
- Edge & scrubbing plan — Anycast POPs, scrubbing providers, GRE/VRFs, health checks.
- Routing controls — BGP communities, RTBH/Flowspec readiness, diversity letters. → BGP Management
- Origin defenses — allowlists, mTLS, cache/shield; autoscale policies. → CDN • Encryption • PKI
- SOAR playbooks — detect→mitigate; rollback; surge runbooks; approvals matrix. → SIEM / SOAR
- SLO dashboards — latency/loss/TTM/FP%; exec views; cost tracking.
- Drills — blackhole, Flowspec push, region withdraw, WAF virtual patch, cache purge; publish RCAs.
✅ Pre-Engagement Checklist
- 📄 Prefixes, DNS zones, Anycast plan, scrubbing contract(s).
- 🧭 BGP policy (communities, RTBH), Flowspec capabilities, GRE/Direct Connect details.
- 🧰 WAF/Bot routes & risk tiers; API schemas; allowlists.
- 🔐 mTLS origin posture; TLS policy; key custody. → Encryption • PKI • Key Management / HSM
- 📊 SIEM/SOAR destinations; evidence format; approval matrix.
- 🧪 Canary plan; rollback triggers; SLO targets and alert thresholds.
🔄 Where DDoS Protection Fits (Recursive View)
1) Grammar — attack/clean traffic traverse Connectivity & Networks & Data Centers.
2) Syntax — Cloud + CDN shape delivery, scrubbing paths, and on-ramps.
3) Semantics — Cybersecurity preserves truth; DDoS proves boundary resilience.
4) Pragmatics — SolveForce AI predicts surges, tunes limits, and auto-rolls policies.
5) Foundation — consistent terms via Primacy of Language.
6) Map — indexed in SolveForce Codex & Knowledge Hub.
📞 Deploy DDoS Protection That’s Fast, Safe & Auditable
Related pages:
WAF / Bot • CDN • BGP Management • SD-WAN • SIEM / SOAR • Encryption • PKI • Direct Connect • Cybersecurity • Knowledge Hub